Several ideas are knocking on my brain. Putting them into words on a page would be good medicine, but the results of my own journey through marriage prison camp leave me without stamina. I work 6 days a week to pay the bills and make sure the kids are provided for as they try to heal, too. One might go back to school if one had enough stamina to study instead of sleep between work shifts. But, thank the Lord, my home space is a peaceful space.
Recently, I hadn't the strength to get off the couch, so I went through the choices on Netflix. There was a documentary on Stress that was done by National Geographic. As I watched the program document the research of Robert Sapolsky, I wanted to dance. Here was a confirmation of what I felt going on in my physical processes over the years of abuse and then during the painful healing years (still going). I thought of how during the healing I could actually FEEL the pain of my cells changing. In the space of a couple of months I looked totally different. The pain was something like when your foot "falls asleep" from disuse and then wakes, causing agony as it does.
I won't go into detail as anyone who has gone through this could watch the documentary and relate. Anyone who wonders if they should aim to be unbound may see why it is necessary. Domestic violence is a worse crime than quick murder. It is in fact murder of the cruelest sort. DV murders with the hands of the one who is supposed to be the love and companion of your entire life. Those hands become instead the instruments of torture that cause your very cells to begin to die. The abusing mind is the mind of a serial killer who charms his world in the daylight and practices his secret hell on his partner: slow torture killing the soul. The body also dies slowly. We stay for the torture knowing that trying to leave will mean the threat of final murder, stalking, and danger to children used as pawns.
Recently I visited with a sweet friend from my former church. She is sympathetic to the issue of domestic violence, but she left with this "unique" question: "Why does a woman stay in the relationship. I wouldn't put up with it even once!" I was asked the same question in court. Where in the world is the protection that makes it possible? Why are family torturers considered fine men to win custody of the children if you try to leave him? How can a mother survive the ultimate trauma of seeing her babies ruined by their own trauma?
Oh, and incidentally, my ex-husband's attorney also asked me why I didn't stay: did I not believe that a man could change? Unique.
As this relates to the church-at-large, appropriate compassion in not readily available. The damage that is worse than broken bones is labeled "a bad spiritual attitude". Appropriate medicine is demonized with sermons against such "spiritual weakness" even though the same preacher may not deny medical care to his wife after a stroke. Compassion, which could cause a physical process in the body to promote healing, is denied and replaced with disciplinary attitudes towards the abused woman.
As I ponder all of this, I am sure it is not the woman in healing who is the crazy one.
Recently, I hadn't the strength to get off the couch, so I went through the choices on Netflix. There was a documentary on Stress that was done by National Geographic. As I watched the program document the research of Robert Sapolsky, I wanted to dance. Here was a confirmation of what I felt going on in my physical processes over the years of abuse and then during the painful healing years (still going). I thought of how during the healing I could actually FEEL the pain of my cells changing. In the space of a couple of months I looked totally different. The pain was something like when your foot "falls asleep" from disuse and then wakes, causing agony as it does.
I won't go into detail as anyone who has gone through this could watch the documentary and relate. Anyone who wonders if they should aim to be unbound may see why it is necessary. Domestic violence is a worse crime than quick murder. It is in fact murder of the cruelest sort. DV murders with the hands of the one who is supposed to be the love and companion of your entire life. Those hands become instead the instruments of torture that cause your very cells to begin to die. The abusing mind is the mind of a serial killer who charms his world in the daylight and practices his secret hell on his partner: slow torture killing the soul. The body also dies slowly. We stay for the torture knowing that trying to leave will mean the threat of final murder, stalking, and danger to children used as pawns.
Recently I visited with a sweet friend from my former church. She is sympathetic to the issue of domestic violence, but she left with this "unique" question: "Why does a woman stay in the relationship. I wouldn't put up with it even once!" I was asked the same question in court. Where in the world is the protection that makes it possible? Why are family torturers considered fine men to win custody of the children if you try to leave him? How can a mother survive the ultimate trauma of seeing her babies ruined by their own trauma?
Oh, and incidentally, my ex-husband's attorney also asked me why I didn't stay: did I not believe that a man could change? Unique.
As this relates to the church-at-large, appropriate compassion in not readily available. The damage that is worse than broken bones is labeled "a bad spiritual attitude". Appropriate medicine is demonized with sermons against such "spiritual weakness" even though the same preacher may not deny medical care to his wife after a stroke. Compassion, which could cause a physical process in the body to promote healing, is denied and replaced with disciplinary attitudes towards the abused woman.
As I ponder all of this, I am sure it is not the woman in healing who is the crazy one.
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